The Nexi* were continually brought before the prætor's tribunal, and made Addicti. Every patrician house was a gaol for debtors; and after every court-day, in times of distress, droves of sentenced debtors, with their sons and grandchildren, might be seen driven off in chains to these dungeons.

The grievances of the plebeians were intolerable, yet there appeared no remedy. While they were in this state of uncertainty, an old man one day broke from his prison in chains, and covered with rags: he appealed to the Quirites to protect him, enumerated the battles he had fought, recounted the causes of his misfortunes, and showed the bloody marks of his creditor's cruelty. The pity and indignation of the people were excited; all were clamorous for relief. The senate knew not what to do; they ordered a levy against the Volscians; the people refused to enlist. The consul Servilius issued a proclamation allowing those who were in slavery for debt to serve, and declaring that as long as a soldier was under arms, his family should remain in undisturbed enjoyment of his property. The legions were filled up, and the army soon returned covered with conquest and laden with booty; but the hopes of the plebeians were disappointed. Next year they again refused to serve in the legions. Valerius was made dictator, and he issued a proclamation similar to that of Servilius. The people trusted in the character of Valerius, and the power of the dictatorship. The army was victorious; but even Valerius could not overcome the obduracy of the senate, influenced by the unbending tyrannic spirit of Appius Claudius.

The dictator's army had been disbanded; those of the consuls were still in the field. An insurrection broke out. The legions appointed L. Sicinius Bellutus their leader, crossed the Anio, and occupied the Sacred Mount. The plebeians in the city and its vicinity retired to the Aventine and Esquiline hills of the city: the patricians and

Those who were in debt under obligation to pay after a certain period were called Nexi; those who failed to pay and were by the prætor delivered over to their creditors were called Addicti.

their clients occupied the Palatine, Capitoline, Quirinal, and Cælian: these were all separate and fortified. Matters might have come to bloodshed, but that the power of the two parties was pretty nearly balanced, and the dread of external enemies made them averse to weaken themselves. The patricians formed an alliance with the Latins: they then deputed ten of the principal members of their body to treat with the plebeians, and peace was ultimately established and sworn to between the two orders. By this the patricians sought to separate the interest of the multitude from that of the men of rank: to the latter they conceded nothing, gave them admittance to none of the honours of the state; to appease the former, they consented to give force to the Valerian law, to cancel all debts, and release all enslaved debtors. But the law of debt remained unaltered.

This secession and treaty were rendered memorable B. c. by the institution of the Tribunate, an inviolate popular 483. magistracy, established for the protection of the plebs, which proved a salutary check on the excesses of either party; was the chief mean of preserving Rome so long from bloody dissensions; but, like every human institution, growing pernicious when it had outlived its original purpose, afterwards became a chief instrument in the overthrow of liberty.

Spurius Cassius, and the Agrarian Law.

The bonds of alliance were now drawn closer between the Romans and the Latins, and a third nation, the Hernicians, was taken into the alliance. According to the terms of it, all spoils and conquests were to be divided, share and share alike, among the three nations.

Sp. Cassius Viscellinus, the Roman consul, was the person who concluded this league. He, some time after, brought forward the first Agrarian law, was accused before the curiæ of aiming at the sovereignty, was condemned, and thrown from the Tarpeian rock, his house razed, his goods sold, and the produce dedicated to Ceres.

The Roman Agrarian laws have frequently been represented as unjust and iniquitous. A moment's consideration of their nature will prove such a supposition to be groundless. It was the practice of Rome, and the Italian states in general, on making a conquest, to take a portion, generally a third, of the enemy's land. This then became public land, and was occupied for tillage or grazing, by the citizens of the state which had acquired it; they paid a tenth of the produce by way of rent, and the land was subject to resumption by the state. While the Roman citizens consisted of the three patrician tribes alone, there was no cause for murmur; but when the plebs gradually grew up, and as the infantry of the army was the chief instrument in the acquisition of public land, they naturally claimed to have a share in what was gained. The kings, therefore, were in the habit of assigning small portions of the public land as property to the plebeians, and thus the latter grew, by degrees, to be the only or principal land-owners in the state. After the expulsion of the Tarquinii, a distribution of the crown lands was made among the plebeians; but the loss of the lands beyond the Tiber, and the heavy weight of taxation which fell almost entirely on them, now that the patricians, having gotten the government into their own hands, no longer paid the tenths off the public land, made the plebeians more clearly discern the injustice with which they were treated, and be clamorous for an Agrarian law, i. e. a law which was not, as has been erroneously supposed, to take their property from the rich and give it to the poor, but which would make the patricians give up a portion of the public land which they occupied without paying any rent or taxes, to be divided in small lots among those whose blood had purchased it.

The Decemvirs and the Twelve Tables.

After the death of Cassius, the struggles between the orders continued. The Romans were, in fact, two nations within the same walls, so distinct as not even to have the

connubium or right of intermarriage. The plebeians saw that political equality was not yet attainable; but they felt the absolute necessity of legal equality, and they insisted on a general code of laws being formed. After a most obstinate resistance on the part of the patricians, it was, at length, agreed to appoint ten persons to form a code; and deputies, it is added, were sent to the Greek cities in Italy to collect their wisest laws, and bring 453. them home for the use of the legislators.

The legislators were in number ten, hence called Decemvirs. They were all patricians, and invested with unlimited powers; the consulate, tribunate, and quæstorate, were suspended during their magistracy. The decemvirs proved themselves worthy of this confidence. They governed ten days alternately, and each member of the college rendered to those who appealed from the sentence of his colleagues the assistance which the tribunes used to give. They collected all the former traditionary laws, selected those that were salutary, and formed a general code, instead of the former partial and local rights. The two orders were formed into one nation, the patricians and their clients being received into the plebeian local tribes. The Comitia of the centuries were declared to be the sole jurisdiction in capital cases, and any charge affecting liberty and civic rights, and thus the equality of the citizens was decidedly pronounced; for all orders were comprised in these comitia.

The decemvirs having, with honour to themselves and advantage to the state, performed the duties imposed upon them, and drawn up a code in ten tables, laid down their office. But, under pretext of something still remaining to be done, the office was continued for another year, and ten persons, five patricians and five plebeians, chosen. These enacted two more tables, thus making the whole twelve. But they governed with haughtiness and tyranny; the senate stood in awe of them; the people, having now no tribunitian protection, trembled before them, while the younger patricians exulted in the licence given to them, and maintained the

B. C.

cause of the decemvirs. The year passed,— no sign of their laying down their office: the tyranny seemed intended to be perpetual. The lust of Appius, the chief of them, saved the state. He had seen Virginia, the daughter of Virginius, a centurion, crossing the forum in her way to school; a freedman of his, suborned by him, claimed her as his slave; her lover hastened to the camp to inform her father, who hurried to Rome. Virginia was brought before the tribunal of the decemvir, and by him assigned as a slave to his freedman: her father, seeing the honour of his family about to be stained, caught up a butcher's knife and plunged it into the bosom of his innocent child; then, with the bloody weapon reeking in his hand, hastened to the camp, told his comrades what he had done, and invoked their aid. The army marched to Rome, and posted itself on the Aventine: the decemvirate was abolished, and the tribunate of the people restored. Appius and Oppius, the most guilty of the decemvirs, died in prison by their own hand; their colleagues went into voluntary exile.

Spurius Mælius.

The consulate was restored; two members of the illustrious houses of the Valerii and the Horatii were the first consuls. They carried laws in favour of plebeian liberty. When their year expired, the tribunes brought in a bill to enable the people to choose, at their option, patrician or plebeian consuls. The chief patricians assembled to consult how to obviate the fancied danger of their order; C. Claudius even proposed to murder the tribunes; his project was rejected with indignation, and the two orders agreed, that, instead of two consuls, there should be six military tribunes, three from each order, placed at the head of the government. But the people, as yet, gained not much; for the patricians, by management and union, generally contrived to procure for themselves the whole, or the greater part, of the tribunarian authority. Consuls, too, were frequently chosen, and they and military tribunes alternated.